from Guy Debord

The principal meaning of the extravagant verdict against Spur is obviously the direct menace it poses to all those who want to continue along the non-conformist track (the Spurists think that all this was already contained in the trial against Dohl[2] in 1960). On 5 July [1962], the court will issue its judgment against Uwe Lausen, which might be even worse: the S[ituationist] I[nternational] has precise plans for even more radical manifestations in the D.B.R. [West Germany].

I know that Jacqueline [de Jong] has spoken abusively about the Spurists. But we have not responded to her. Because she is in a pure and simple void, she naturally tries to bring in as many people as possible. She will easily pull in the Nashists, who are so debased, even in the eyes of the Scandanavian avant-garde, that their most recent manoeuvre has been to tell journalists that the SI has agreed to take them back, and that they have received a letter from me confirming this! It has sufficed for us to denounce the usage of this really very crude fakery, and I don't know who still takes the future of Nash and his collaborators seriously.

You know that we make a big distinction between the Spurists, who remain worthy of our esteem, and the remaining associates of the Jongian-Nashists, who are definitively reduced to a despicable nothingness.

I think, as do you, that the Spur group has no interest in looking for contact with the SI -- that the SI will not accept it -- and this not only because of the Spurists' legitimate feelings of pride (which is obviously lacking in Jacqueline or Nash), but also because the history of our relations has revealed a sufficiently large objective opposition between our [respective] principles, methods and goals. So that, in as much as the Spur group will continue to exist, it is just and useful that it is only responsible for its own autonomous action.

The journal Alternative hasn't had a successor. In the winter of '60-'61, it was a pre-SI platform in Brussels (with [Raoul] Vaneigem).

One will have all the patience that is necessary in waiting for the [cigarette] lighter.

[1] Rodolphe (Rudolf) Gasche, a member of the Spur group.

[2] Convicted in Germany, in the name of moral order, for publishing a blasphemous text.

(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 2, 1960-1964. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! May 2005.)